From the beginning, to be a Christian means to be a member of the Church. Being a member of the Church means being part of the Body of Christ, not his mystical body, as is sometimes supposed, but a member of his Verum Corpus, his true body. To speak of the Church as Christ’s mystical body and the consecrated bread and wine as his true body, as the Jesuit theologian Henri De Lubac noted, is a reversal that occurred in the Middle Ages. This reversal has had a largely negative effect.
It has been noted, “the Eucharist makes the Church, and the Church makes the Eucharist.” As in all the sacraments, the Holy Spirit is the active agent in the Eucharist. It is by the power of the Spirit that the bread and wine are sacramentally, as opposed to literally in a crude sense, transformed into Christ’s body and blood. It is by our communal participation in the Eucharist, which culminates with receiving communion, that we become Christ’s Verum Corpus, his true, physical body, his hands, his feet, his heart in the world.
During his Last Supper Discourse in John’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that he will “ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth… I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”1 The powerful descent of the Holy Spirit as described in our first reading from the second chapter of Acts is the fulfillment of the Lord’s promise not to leave his disciples orphans. What is the Holy Spirit if not the way Christ remains present not just to us, but present in and through us? Christ is made present through us whenever we serve in his name for the sake of God’s kingdom.
As has been mentioned previously this Eastertide, resurrection, ascension, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit are not separate events but part of the great event of our salvation. Grouped together, we call these “the Paschal Mystery.” Not only do these happenings constitute a singular event, this event is also ongoing, something in which we participate.
Every Eucharist, every sacramental celebration, is an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, another indication of the ongoing nature of Pentecost. We see this clearly in Acts of the Apostles through the lectionary. Two weeks ago, on the Sixth Sunday of Easter, our first reading was a section of Acts chapter ten. This section about the Holy Spirit coming upon the household of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, is often called “the Pentecost of the Gentiles.”2
As the Lord indicates in our Gospel today, the Holy Spirit does not testify to the Holy Spirit. Just as our Blessed Mother does not point to herself but always to her Son. Because he is the way Christ remains present in and through us, the Spirit glorifies Christ by taking from what is Christ’s and declaring it to us. This is how, over time, slowly, the Church is guided into all truth.
Truth is dynamic, not static. What we know about something might well be true but in almost every case we can know more. Learning more may change the way you conceive the first truth you grasped. This becomes more evident when you start to synthesize the true things you know, that is, consider them in relation. Truth is symphonic, not monotone. It is important, especially when dealing with revelation, not to make truth flat and two-dimensional. The truths of revelation are not simply informative, they are formative, even generative. As revelation shows us, God’s word makes something out of nothing and brings life from death.
What does it mean to say, “Jesus is Lord?”3 As Christians, we might assert this merely a statement of fact. But this fact is not self-evident. It is easy to speak the words “Jesus is Lord,” either sincerely or flippantly. Only one’s manner of life can verify that these words are uttered by the Holy Spirit’s power.
Christ in the Storm at Sea, by Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1633
In writing about the Church as Christ’s Body, Saint Paul notes that, like the human body, all members of the Church perform a function in and for the body. One sign of the acceptance of Jesus’s Lordship is that a Christian, baptized, confirmed, and spiritually nourished by the Eucharist, discerns and fulfills the function s/he has been gifted and empowered to fulfill. These days in the Church we call this co-responsibility. As members called to different offices, called to perform different functions for and on behalf of the Body, we are the ones who make Christ’s Body his Verum Corpus, his concrete, tangible, active body.
One way to understand a sacrament is as a visible and tangible sign of Christ’s presence in and for the world. In the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, known by its first Latin words, Lumen Gentium (i.e., “Light of the Nations”), the fathers of Vatican II noted that Christ “sent His life-giving Spirit upon His disciples.”4 Further, they asserted, it is through his Spirit that Christ “established His Body which is the Church as the universal sacrament of salvation.”5
Ascended and seated at the Father’s right hand, it is through the power of the Holy Spirit that Christ “is continually active in the world.”6 His activity seeks to lead everyone “to the Church and through it join them to Himself and that He might make them partakers of His glorious life by nourishing them with His own Body and Blood.”7
It is not just by belonging to the Church but by discerning and fulfilling our co-responsibility in and on behalf of the Church that “we learn the meaning of our [earthly] life through our faith, while we perform with hope in the future the work committed to us in this world by the Father, and thus work out our salvation.”8
While it seems incomprehensible to some and even offensive to others, the Church is integral, not extraneous, to God accomplishing his purpose in and for the world. This is not to say that being a member of the Church is easy. It isn’t for a variety of reasons, not least of which, in recent years, the failures of many in leadership. It has been noted that just because Jesus is in the boat with you doesn’t mean there won’t be occasional throwing up over the side. Rembrandt's famous painting Christ in the Storm at Sea features one of the apostles doing just that. Being human means being willing to suffer for what we love and/or because we are loved. Despite her wandering ways, Christ loves his Bride, the Church, and remains faithful to her.
Even with 3,000 people baptized during the inaugural Christian Pentecost, I doubt those upon whom the Holy Spirit was poured out that day foresaw the magnitude of what was to come vis-à-vis the Church. But convinced that Jesus is Lord and animated by the Holy Spirit, through their collective actions, they were made Christ’s Verum Corpus. They became the universal sacrament of salvation.
As we emerge from a year of suffering the effects of a pandemic, which has taken a toll on our communal life, limited as our gatherings have necessarily been, on this Pentecost, prompted by the Holy Spirit, let us each one of us recommit to being members of Christ’s Body, the Church. By and large, the Church for us day in day out, week in week out is Saint Olaf parish. Over the past several years and even over the past month or so, many pillars of our parish have gone to be with the Lord. They left us a firm foundation on which to build. We are their legacy. Because we are people of hope, Christians look to the future as we anticipate the Lord's return.
At the center of those to whom Christ initially fulfilled his promise to send the Holy Spirit was our Blessed Mother, Mary. Mary, the Mother of God, is the model disciple. To proclaim Jesus is Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit is to utter one’s own fiat. Just as Mary responded to God’s call to bear Christ, you too must say to God, “May it be done to me according to your word.”9
Tomorrow, the Monday after Pentecost, the Church celebrates the Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church. And so today we pray, Veni Sancte Spiritus, Veni per Mariam. Come Holy Spirit, come through Mary.
1 John 14:16.18.↩
2 Acts 10:25-26.34-35.44-48.↩
3 1 Corinthians 12:3b.↩
4 Second Vatican Council, Dogmatic Constitution on the Church [Lumen Gentium], sec. 48.↩
5 Ibid.↩
6 Ibid.↩
7 Ibid.↩
8 Ibid.↩
9 Luke 1:38.↩
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